Ashland 20, Dedham 5: Ashland starts clock on second season with mauling of Dedham

Carrying over its strong play from the last weeks of the regular season, the Ashland girls lacrosse team opened the state tournament with a dominating performance. Led by Bri Maher and Caroline Merrill, who combined for 13 goals and five assists, the 11th-seeded Clockers steamrolled No. 22 Dedham Saturday morning 20-5 in the preliminary round of the Division 2 South sectional.

Carrying over its strong play from the last weeks of the regular season, the Ashland girls lacrosse team opened the state tournament with a dominating performance.

Led by Bri Maher and Caroline Merrill, who combined for 13 goals and five assists, the 11th-seeded Clockers steamrolled No. 22 Dedham Saturday morning 20-5 in the preliminary round of the Division 2 South sectional.

The one-sided victory for the Clockers (13-7-1) sets up a rematch with sixth-seeded Foxboro (17-2-1) in a first-round game on Tuesday at 4 p.m. Ashland lost to Foxboro 12-8 in a non-league game during the regular season.

The Clockers entered the postseason with a nice run midway through the season where they won seven straight games after starting 0-3, and finished the year with a 3-1-1 stretch.

"We've been preaching full team efforts and coming together all season," said Ashland coach Tanya Lowe. "I think you saw that today, finally. We had multiple goal scorers, excellent ball movement and the energy was high right from the start. We're a very different team than we were earlier this season. We look at this as a completely new year and right now we're 1-0."

"We're playing very well as a team right now, maybe the best we have all season," said Maher. "Everyone just wanted to get a bit of a fresh start with the playoffs, sort of turn the page on the regular season and I think we did a good job of doing that today. It's a new season and right now we're 1-0."

From the opening face-off Dedham was outmatched against the focused Ashland squad.

Both Merrill and Maher had two goals apiece before the game was nine minutes old. With 3:13 to play in the first half Maher already had her first hat trick of the day and put her team up 7-3. With 1:38 left her fourth goal gave Ashland an 8-4 lead they would carry in to halftime.

It was much more of he same in the second half as the Clocker defense held Dedham off the scoreboard until just 25 seconds remained in the game. Maher, Merrill, Schaeffer and Mitjans all tallied goals in the second half, with running time being implemented once Ashland went ahead by 10.

Jodie Munchbach accounted for all of Dedham’s scoring with five goals.

Following the game, the focus quickly turned toward the matchup with Foxboro, something that everyone dressed in blue and white was eagerly anticipating.

Ashland gave Hockomock League power Foxboro quite a challenge in their match on May 8. Coupled with Saturday’s victory and its improved play down the stretch, the Clockers will board the bus Tuesday afternoon determined to upset the higher-seeded Warriors.

Page 2 of 2 -
"We're a much different team than the one that Foxboro remembers," Lowe told her team following the win.

"We're playing with so much more confidence right now, everyone is sharing the ball and making sure they're patient when looking for a good shot," said Merrill. "We're really excited for the challenge of facing Foxboro again. We hope it's going to be a different game this time around."